|
Post by Bingo on Jun 14, 2022 10:03:04 GMT -8
Kyle Coroneos (aka the Triggerman, of Saving Country Music) has posted an article discussing the prospects for Linda and Freddie Fender (among others) for election. He points out that no artist of Hispanic heritage has yet received that accolade (though, given the opaque nature of the selection process and the random exclusion of other apparently deserving candidates, he stops short of attributing that to a deliberate policy) The Prospects of Linda Ronstadt & Freddy Fender for Country Hall of Fame
|
|
|
Post by erik on Jun 16, 2022 19:54:53 GMT -8
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Freddy Fender certainly merits consideration because he helped bring the Tex-Mex sound into the country genre during the 1970's--not to mention the fact that four of the songs he took to #1 on the country charts also charted fairly well on the pop charts as well: "Before The Next Teardrop Falls" (#1 on May 31, 1975); "Wasted Days And Wasted Nights" (#8, October 1975); "Secret Love" (#20, November 1975); and "You'll Lose A Good Thing" (#32, March 1976).
As for Linda--well, over there at SCM I did write a fairly long, "screed" I guess you could call it, on all the reasons why she deserves to be only the third female artist to be in both the Rock and Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame (after Brenda Lee, and her Trio pal Dolly). I didn't mention much about Linda being Hispanic (or "Latin-x", as we now refer to most who are Hispanic), because, aside from the track "Lo Siento Mi Vida" on her 1976 album Hasten Down The Wind and a Spanish-language version of "Blue Bayou", Linda's ethnicity really didn't surface among the general public until late in 1987, when Canciones De Mi Padre was unleashed.
But certainly Linda's appreciation for country music, and her impact on the genre, albeit from way beyond the confines of Music Row, in fact all the way out to L.A., is hard to understate. Even if one doesn't count the Trio projects, Linda's penchant for combining the traditional spirit of the form with the progressivism of West Coast rock has had a gigantic influence on a vast majority of female artists, both in mainstream country and Americana--everyone from Rosanne Cash and Carlene Carter, through to Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Patty Loveless, and Suzy Bogguss, and more recent women like Tift Merritt, Margo Price, Kelsey Waldon, Lindi Ortega, Carrie Underwood, Caitlin Rose, Maren Morris, and probably even the Chicks themselves. When you sell something on the order of one hundred million albums in a career that began in 1967, it only takes a few thousand copies of those albums to end up in the record collections of these gals to have an impact. And make no mistake about it, Linda has had, and even in retirement with her health nowhere near where it used to be, continues to make an impact.
|
|